Schloss Hornstein

Schloss Hornstein stands on a wooded slope north of Krumpendorf beside Lake Wörth in Carinthia. The small castle was built in the 15th century by Ulrich Hornsteiner. By the mid-18th century it belonged to the Counts of Ursenböck, who in 1757 received a licence from Bishop Johann Baptist von Thurn und Taxis to hold mass in the castle chapel. In 1865 Otto Daublesky Freiherr von Sterneck bought the property, which remains in private hands today. The artist Markus Pernhart included the castle in his 19th-century cycle of views of local castles. The building is a compact, three-bay cube under a low hipped roof. Two round corner towers with flat conical roofs stand diagonally opposite each other at the north-east and south-west corners. A later extension was added on the north side. Above the rustic round-arched main door hangs the Sterneck-Dickmann double coat of arms, placed there about 1860. On the courtyard wall by the entrance a damaged baroque double coat of arms with a putto remains visible. Visitors approach through the arched gateway into a small courtyard. The main block’s simple façades rise two storeys above the slope, with small rectangular windows evenly spaced. The two cylindrical towers, each lit by narrow slits, give the castle a modest medieval silhouette. Beyond the building the wooded hillside drops toward the lake, offering quiet glimpses of water through the trees.